


Abronia Villosa

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 13:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12037140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: 2B awakes in the desert, unable to recall what circumstances brought her there. In the bunker, 6O struggles with the knowledge that 2B's safety is ultimately her responsibility.





	Abronia Villosa

2B lifted her head out of the dirt and spat. Her mouth tasted gritty, a thin film of sandy loam coating her lips. She pushed herself to her knees and ran an internal diagnostics check.

She squinted, her HUD a blur. She hadn’t taken that hard of a hit, had she?

She shook out her blindfold, loosening grains of sand from the folds of delicate fabric. She reaffixed it. Ah, that was better.

“2B? 2B?” a voice cracked through static, frantic, shrill but concerned. “2B, are you there?”

2B adjusted her headband and stood up. “I’m here.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” came the voice through the radio. “We lost contact about half an hour ago and we haven’t heard anything since. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” 2B shook the sand from her dress and stretched, listening to her joints crack and pop. She brought up her map and tried to remember what she had been doing.

“Operator,” she asked as she scanned the map. “Can you run diagnostics from your end? I did an internal check and nothing came up, but I seem to be having problems with my memory bank.”

“Yep, just a sec, 2B!” came the cheerful voice again.

2B winced briefly, almost imperceptibly, as she felt the unmistakable sensation of an external computer lodging into her network. It didn’t hurt, per se, but it was an unpleasant feeling, the awareness of a foreign body in what should be personal space. Generally, only assigned operators had the access privileges to run these diagnostics. Assigned operators and the commander, of course.

2B stared off to the horizon, the sun dropping low behind a stretch of rocky, barren canyons. The desert wasteland was vast, with few landmarks indicating the passage of space at all.

In a way, the relationship between an operator and a battle unit was almost…intimate? 2B shook her head, more sand slipping from her hair. Intimate was too warm, too friendly. It was a relationship of necessity, two symbiotes eternally inconveniencing each other for their mutual benefit. Yes, that was it. 2B had grown used to 6O’s habits and mannerisms, begrudgingly accepting her chipper and relentlessly bright attitude. She had even grown used to the curious sensation of remote analyses, so it was even more surprising when she noticed the sensation had departed her circuits without a word from 6O.

“Operator?” she asked taking a tentative step onto a bank of sand. “Operator, are you there?”

“Yeah, sorry, 2B,” 6O replied after a moment of pause. “Sorry for the wait. It looks like you took a pretty nasty hit and it dislodged some circuits. Not a serious problem, but you’ll need to report back to the Resistance Camp to get patched up.”

“Understood. I’ll report back as soon as I can.”

“Talk to you soon, then,” 6O replied, suddenly absent of her usual cheerfulness.

“Operator?” 2B asked.

“Yes, 2B?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course!” 6O recovered, offering a hollow laugh in response. “Talk to you in a bit!” Her laugh trailed off. The communication line remained open, but 6O didn’t say anything else.

“Operator, your line is open.”

“Of course. Sorry.” The radio channel shut off.

2B dashed into the sand, skating along the surface of the desert under the baking sun. Her pod buzzed to life as she ran, drifting in a lazy perimeter around her.

“Pod, mark the nearest Access Point.”

“Understood. May I make a suggestion?”

“Is it relevant?” 2B asked with disdain. She spied a cluster of machines approaching the lip of a dune. She drew her sword.

“Operator 6O appeared to be concerned about something,” the pod began as 2B launched into combat with the machines. “Her tone of voice, speaking style, and her hesitance to hang up indicate that she may have more to say.”

2B thrust her blade between the metal plates of a small machine lifeform and pried it apart.

Her pod continued. “Proposal: call operator 6O and ask if she would like to talk.”

With almost no effort whatsoever, 2B finished off the group of machines. “Unnecessary. Unless she has mission-relevant data, it can wait.”

“Perhaps her concerns have something to do with why you are out here in the first place,” the pod suggested.

“She would have said something.” 2B resumed her journey through the desert wastes. Her pod projected a video communication screen.

“Pod, hang up,” 2B ordered, seeing the call’s connection target.

“Negative.”

“Pod!” 2B snapped. Too late.

“2B?” 6O asked, peering over her facemask at the video screen. “Are you okay? Is there a problem?”

“No. I just…” 2B scrambled to come up with an excuse. “I’m considering returning to the bunker for repairs. Are the access units ready to receive?”

“Of course.” 6O replied.

“I’ll see you soon, 6O.”

“Yeah,” 6O said halfheartedly, closing her video channel. Again, the audio channel remained open.

2B paused, her heels digging into the sand. “6O?”

The other end of the line was almost silent. 2B waited.

“I…I had that dream again,” 6O said softly, at long last.

“I’ve told you before. Androids can’t dream. It’s just a random jumble of data,” 2B said, obviously struggling to convey any sort of empathy. 

“I was looking at old records, and the humans say that too,” 6O protested. “Many humans once theorized that dreams are just collages of sensations and feelings from their past. But many humans also say that dreams are important. Some even believe you can tell the future with them.”

“It’s just meaningless data,” 2B said again. “It isn’t something you need to worry about.”

“I know, but…” 2B could hear her voice muffle and guessed she put her face in her hands. “I’m worried about you, 2B.”

“I’m going to come back to the bunker. We can talk then, okay?”

“Yeah,” 6O said softly. With a hiss of static, the line disconnected.

 

-

 

6O put her head down on her desk as the screen shut off. She breathed heavily into the crook of her elbow, fighting back tears. “2B…” she murmured quietly. After taking a minute to collect herself, she stood up from her desk and logged off her computer. As she walked down the narrow aisle to the elevator, she touched Operator 21O on the shoulder.

“I’m taking a break,” she said. “Can you take any calls directed at me?”

21O continued typing and staring into her monitor. “Understood,” she said, not slowing her work.

“Thanks,” 6O said. She made her way down the sterile steel corridors of the bunker, occasionally stopping to rest on a handrail. She stared out the window, gazing down at the Earth in its slow revolutions below.

She put both hands on the handrail and took a deep breath. She hadn’t been sleeping, and it was beginning to wear on her circuitry. She could feel her chest overheating if she worried about it too much. She pressed her forehead against the window and placed a hand against it, a single finger lazily tracing out 2B’s mission operations area. She had been gone for nearly three weeks now, and with each passing day 6O felt sicker and sicker. She took another breath and continued down the hall towards the bank of Access Points.

One buzzed to life and her eyes opened wide.

“2B!” she shouted as she dashed to the point. The door slid open with a hiss of decompression and out stepped a red-haired scout unit. She frowned as 6O approached and sidestepped her misdirected embrace.

“Oh, sorry!” 6O stammered. “I thought you were someone else!”

“No problem,” the android said, shrugging as she walked towards the command room.

6O leaned against the wall opposite the access points, collecting herself. She adjusted her mask. She called up a relaxation program to soothe herself. She adjusted her mask again.

_It’s not a big deal_. She told herself. _It’s fine. She’s fine. She’s okay._

The dreams had been getting worse. If it was, as 2B suggested, just a random jumble of data, it was no doubt from her hours trawling through the war records. Video after video of androids in combat, androids dying by the dozens. Fighting machines, fighting each other. Viruses, malfunctions, storms, collapsing buildings. She tried to focus on her relaxation program, a data sorting game, but horrors kept bleeding into her vision. She shut the program down and pressed her hands against her temples.

She closed her eyes and tried again, this time calling up a simple vision calibration program. She could see a lake, serene and peaceful, shrouded by a dense pine forest. The water gently lapped at the shore. Wind rustled the branches of the trees. Mountains towered in the distance, white-capped teeth lodged in the sky. _Earth_.

A touch brought her back to reality. She opened her eyes slowly, almost cautiously.

“Oh, 2B,” she breathed, throwing her arms around the android. She pressed her face into the crook of 2B’s neck.

2B sighed and slid her arms around 6O. “I need to get my repairs,” she said, pulling away from the embrace.

“Oh, of course!” 6O stammered, wiping her eyes and trying to look like she hadn’t just teared up. “I-uh…I can do it. Um...yeah, come on!”

“You’ll never believe what I was reading, 2B!” She chatted excitedly as they walked through the bunker. “I was reading about old human entertainment customs, and you’ll never believe what humans used to do. They would construct little trains to go up and down hills really fast! That’s it! No other purpose than riding these little cars up and down hills. They had all sorts – wooden ones, metal ones, one’s that hung upside-down, it’s amazing!” She prattled on, lecturing 2B on the crazy ways in which humans once had ‘fun’. “I don’t know if I could do something like that. What about you, 2B? Do you think you could ever ride a roller coaster?”

2B frowned. “I don’t think so. I don’t see when the need would ever arise.”

6O pouted. “Come on, 2B! What about driving? Don’t you think that’s neat?”

“Irrelevant. Flight units are faster and more versatile.”

“Well, I’d love to go on a road trip sometime. That what humans called it when they’d get in a car and drive somewhere far away.” 6O continued chitchatting as she led 2B into the repairs room.

 

- 

 

2B sat down on her bed, reaching up and adjusting her blindfold absentmindedly. 6O was standing by the door, fussing with 2B’s computer.

“What are you doing?” 2B began sifting through her drawers looking for a new dress that wasn’t permeated with sand.

“I have the data we extracted from your damaged banks. I figured you’d want to look over it.”

2B nodded and walked across the room to the monitor.

“Just a second…and…there!” 6O hit a key triumphantly and a series of text boxes scrolled across the screen. “The data should be transferring to you now.”

2B twitched slightly as the data uploaded. She shuddered and straightened up as the lost memories slotted back into her consciousness.

“Do you remember?”

2B nodded. “Yes, I remember now. I have something for you.” She began to sift through her pack, withdrawing a small purple flower.

“2B…” 6O stared at her. “Is that…?”

“It’s a desert sand verbena, a-“

“ _Abronia Villosa_ ,” 6O cut her off, mouth agape.

“You asked me to pick one up for you to study.”

“Is that what you were doing in the desert?”

2B nodded. “I remember now. I found a cluster of the flowers in a canyon, but I was ambushed by several machine lifeforms. I managed to grab one before being knocked out.”

6O pursed her lips and reached out, gingerly touching the petals. “I…you didn’t need to do that for me.”

“You requested it.”

“I know, but…if I would have known you could have gotten hurt, I-“ she withdrew, not wanting to touch the flowers.

“Do you not want it?”

“No, I-“ 6O choked out a sob. “2B, I’m so sorry,” she grabbed 2B and pulled her into an embrace. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

“It’s fine,” 2B replied. “I’ve accomplished your mission and have gotten my repairs.”

“Does this mean you want to leave again?” 6O said into her shoulder.

“I need to report to the commander to see if she has another mission for me.”

“2B…” 6O pulled back, tears glistening on her cheeks and dampening her mask. “I…I understand.”

2B set the flower down on the bed and turned towards the door. As she went to leave, 6O grabbed her hand.

“Um…2B…is it alright if I stay here? In your room, I mean.”

“Of course,” 2B said curtly. “I’m not using it, so I see no reason why you can’t.”

6O nodded. “Okay. Can you come visit me before you leave again?”

The door closed with a hiss, and 6O found herself alone in 2B’s room. It wasn’t the first time she had been here, of course. She had been in other rooms, too. But only this one felt so cold, so clinical. No decorations on the walls, no personal accoutrements adorning the bed, nothing. 6O sat on the bed, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She ran her hand along the blankets, the pillow. Untouched for nearly a month.

She pulled her knees up against her chest and hugged tightly. She stared at the purple flower. It was beautiful, its petals an alluring gradient of white and violet.

The door opened again.

“You wanted to see me before I left?” 2B said, not stepping into the room.

6O grabbed her and pulled her inside, shutting the door behind them. She held 2B, clutching her tightly. “Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t go. Not so soon.”

“I…” 2B trailed off.

“Please,” 6O whispered. “Just for now. Just stay with me.”

2B nodded slowly.

 

-

 

The nightmares came again. They always did. 6O bolted upright in bed, circuits whirring in her chest loudly enough to hear. She slid out of bed and stumbled to the sink, clutching her hand to her mouth.

She vomited, coughing coolant into the basin, hot and thick. She clutched the rim of the sink and spat, automatically running diagnostics. She must have begun overheating again while she slept.

Flashes of the nightmare remained burned into her vision. 2B’s body, crumpled and bloody, a discarded wreck of flesh and wire.

She wiped her mouth and weakly crawled back into bed.

2B stirred slightly in her sleep, mumbling. 6O closed her eyes and huddled against 2B, draping an arm over her.

“6O?” 2B asked sleepily. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” 6O said quietly. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

6O shook her head and burrowed into 2B’s chest.

2B returned the embrace, squeezing tightly. “I’m…I’m sorry, 6O.”

“For what?”

“I was being reckless and foolish. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt, it was mine.”

“No, don’t say that…” 6O sat up, leaning over 2B. “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. Just for my stupid collection.”

“I…I wanted to,” 2B said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. So rarely did 6O get to see those eyes. Those beautiful, sparkling eyes. Even in the dim light of the bedroom, they sparkled. 6O smiled, hoping 2B felt the same way about her smile.

“I’m sorry I’m such a bother,” 6O said, a touch of somber sweetness in her voice. “I’m always so annoying, bothering you about getting gifts for me, or chatting with me, or making sure you’re getting your checkups, or-“

Her frantic rambling was interrupted by 2B pressing her lips against hers. 6O let out a soft gasp as 2B pulled away.

2B rolled over. “I need to go to sleep.”

6O touched her lips, unsure of what had just transpired. She smiled and laid down next to 2B, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her tight.

“The commander is waiting on mission reports before handing out assignments,” 2B said quietly. “She said I have no active missions until that happens.”

“You mean you can stay?” 6O asked excitedly.

“Yes. Now please let me sleep.”

6O squeezed her even tighter. “Oh, 2B, I’m so happy! I can show you all of the neat things I’ve been learning!”

“Yes, alright. Tomorrow, though.”

6O kissed the back of her neck and gave her another hug. “I love you, 2B.”

2B mumbled something inaudible.

“Hm? What was that?”

“I said ‘goodnight, 6O’.”

6O smiled and closed her eyes, nuzzling 2B’s back. As she drifted to sleep, she could have sworn she heard a contented sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> I would die for 6O.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
